Fall and Falling

Friendly Friday - almost sunrise

The last few days have treated us to some beautiful Fall weather. Here in New Orleans, of course, what we might refer to as "Fall" is fairly similar to what they call "Summer" in other lattitudes. The morning temperatures in the 60s and highs in the low 80s have provided some welcome relief to both cyclists and air-conditioner compressors, and by the looks of the long-range forecast, the cool mornings will stick around for a while. It still won't likely get cool enough for me to start the annual "where did I put those arm-warmers" search, however. The morning rides now are largely in the dark, at least until the first week of November when we shift back to Standard Time. At that point, sunrise will be around 6:15 am so at least it won't be pitch black when I leave the house for a few weeks.

After Six Gap I took it pretty easy for a week, logging only 207 miles, most of which were pretty low intensity. The Tuesday after Six Gap I managed to put a stick into my rear wheel just as we were about to drop down the curb from the little bike path section along the 17th Street Canal onto Old Hammond Highway. That broke a spoke in my trusty Campi Scirocco wheel, so I just limped slowly home. Fortunately, I wasn't riding the new Cervelo Soloist yet because I was waiting for a new saddle to arrive. I called Adam at Bicycle World that afternoon, and luckily they had a couple of suitable replacement spokes. The car was in the shop, so I rode straight over there after work to pick them up, along with a roll of rim tape. I forgot to ask about spoke nipples, but back at home I found one that would work in a box of antique Schwinn branded spokes I'd inherited from Billy Richards, so the wheel was back in action for the following day, albeit with one brass spoke among all of the other aluminum ones (the original Al nipple had broken). The hardest part about the whole repair was coaxing the broken nipple and aluminum washer out of the rim through the valve hole. There was also some rain that week that interfered with a ride or two, all of which was just fine because it wasn't until Thursday before my legs felt reasonably recovered.

Great weather for the northshore Sunday ride

Last week's Friendly Friday ride was, as usual, more fast than friendly, so I was kind of staying out of the wind as much as possible despite my legs feeling back to normal. It was practically my first regular ride on the Cervelo. Afterward, Charles and I booked it down Carrollton to meet up with the Tulane coffee ride, which is always a nice recovery pace on the river levee. They'd decided to stop at Shug's Bagels on Maple Street, so the plan was to turn off of the bike path at the Corps of Engineers crossing on Burdette. As we approached the Corps building I dropped back with a couple of riders who were a bit off the back. Then we heard the train whistle from a train that was slowly approaching from around Audubon Park. We sped up just a bit before dropping down the levee and making an immediate turn on the bumpy asphalt to cross the tracks. I was almost at a stop as I met the group that was waiting there when one of the newer riders kind of miscalculated the turn and quite unexpectedly slammed right into me. I ended up on the ground with one arm neatly lodged in the groove of the train track. Fortunately, nothing was broken, although I probably jammed or dislocated my left ring finger, which is still pretty swollen.

On Saturday there was a planned Tulane northshore ride starting from Abita Springs. Since October is Festival Season around here, there were a couple of minor complications, one of which was that they were having their Fall Festival where we usually park. Fortunately one of the riders who lives in Abita pointed us to a big public parking lot that I didn't know existed, so that was great. I was riding my Bianchi since I have only two thru-axle adaptors for the roof rack and needed to transport four bikes. We headed out with seven riders for the planned 64 mile ride with a starting temperature of maybe 59°F. Yes, I was a little chilly. Pirmin was there, back from Germany, and I think he, Josiah, and Dylan were on the front of the group most of the time. Of course the pace was moderate by design. The weather was spectacular, as was the scenery. There was a charity ride going on that day starting from St. Benedict's, so we ran into a few of the riders and passed a few of their rest stops along the way, although I guess we missed most of the faster riders. We were kind of going in the opposite direction for some of their segments. Anyway, it was a really nice ride. Unfortunately, people had stuff to do afterward, so we just packed up and headed right back across the lake. I was probably home around 1 pm.

Sunday was a Giro for me. Again, it was just a bit chilly riding out to Starbucks in the dark, but the day's weather was again practically perfect for riding. There were about a dozen on hand for the ride, which was reasonably fast, mostly around 23-28 mph with a somewhat unexpected surge up to 39 coming down the overpass and then an unsuccessful chase from there to Seabrook. I did feel kind of wiped out by the time I got home, but that wasn't surprising after a 297 mile week. I was riding the Cervelo that is mostly functional except that I haven't quite sorted out all of the button functions and Garmin 540 data screens, etc., and probably need to go through the derailleur alignment process. I thought I'd immediately need to change out the 80 mm stem for a 100 mm one that I have on hand, but the Shimano Di2 hydraulic brake shift levers are so long that I barely notice any difference except on the drops. I guess I'll ride it like it is for a while and see how that works out. The Reserve 40/44 wheels feel kind of heavy to me, but I think that may be partially because of the tubless-ready Vittoria tires that are currently set up with tubes, and perhaps also the 11-30 cassette. Also, with an internal width of 25 mm (compared to 17-20 mm that I'm used to) makes the 28 mm tires seem huge. Again, I'll probably just ride them like they are for a while before doing anything drastic. I've always leaned toward light weight when it comes to wheels, but I'll probably try some lighter non-tubeless Conti tires and latex or TPU tubes first.

This morning it was pitch dark when I left the house. I glanced up and said hello to Orion, turned on the headlight, and headed off. Along Fontainbleau just before the turn onto Vendome I saw two riders fly by from Nashville. I thought they might be the Tulane riders, so I upped my pace, finally catching them somewhere after Washington Blvd. It turned out to be Connor and Jess (who was recently accepted into the graduate program at Oxford). It sounds likek Connor may be moving to Colorado to start ATC work, having just passed the course. At the museum there was a pretty big group for a Monday that included three Tulane riders in addition to Jess. Dylan and Josiah sat at the front all the way out to Seabrook. Then, after the loop, riders started wanting to go faster and the group split. I stayed with the second group that was just cruising at 20 mph or so. As we approached the Elysian Fields traffic circle we found Connor and Jess over by the curb kind of going the other way. I figured one of them must have dropped something, but it turned out that Connor had flatted. Anyway, we mostly regrouped after Canal for the last stretch down Wisner, after which a lot of riders just kept going on their way home, leaving just a few of us back at the museum. We found the Tulane riders who had kept to their easy pace and we all rode back toward uptown.